


Safe Harbour From The Storm Outside

by DictionaryWrites



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Asexual Relationship, Complicated Relationships, Cuddling & Snuggling, Hurt/Comfort, Intimacy, M/M, POV Varric Tethras, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-08 09:16:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20833046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: There are nights when Hawke just can't take it.





	Safe Harbour From The Storm Outside

It was dark as the shitting Deep Roads outside, but the sky had cracked open. Rain poured down in veridium sheets, hitting the ground hard and rushing into the gutters, and when it gushed over the stairs it was like there were rivers flowing right here in Kirkwall.

There was a reason Varric was inside.

He could hear the storm outside, but he ignored it, going over some written correspondence - one of the bastards from the Merchants’ Guild breathing down his neck, or trying to; some Coterie turncoat offering info about some business out on the Storm Coast; a letter from the Shaperate in Orzammar, answering a research question, which was big enough in itself, given that he was just a surfacer.

He still had to redraft the chapter on his desk, and when he heard the knock on his door, he was, for just a second, pissed. He had _work_ to do, did nobody understand that, when they came to him with their problems? He was _exhausted_.

And yet...

They did know.

And he didn’t mind, or he wouldn’t answer, every time. 

“It’s open,” he called, sipping at his drink, and Hawke stumbled through the door, half-soaked from the rain. He pushed the door shut behind him, and then half-collapsed, his back against the frame, his knees looking like they might just drop him hard on the ground at any moment. “Shit, Hawke. What happened to you?”

“I had an argument with Fenris in the alienage,” Hawke said. “As I walked home _from_ the alienage, I ran into Anders, who had a few choice words for me _about_ Fenris. Before I could even step into my home, Mother decided it was the ideal time to discuss the latest letter she has received from Bethany, and why it is _my_ fault--” He stopped. He looked exhausted, and Varric couldn’t really get over the painful string it tugged at in his chest. “It doesn’t matter. Just that I am currently everybody’s least favourite hero, except, hopefully, yours.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re only my second least favourite,” Varric allowed. “There’s some pretty bad dwarven heroes.”

Hawke laughed, weakly, and he took a few steps forward. “You mind if I take these clothes off?”

“You mind if I write down _exactly_ what I see if you do?”

“Your sketches aren’t enough?”

“The sketches overexaggerate.”

Hawke laughed again, so quietly Varric couldn’t stand it, and then he watched as Hawke pulled off his clothes, hanging them on the stand next to the fire. Men didn’t really do it for Varric, exactly, but it wasn’t about that with Hawke, really. he looked at the muscles of Hawke’s shoulders, his thighs, his calves. The muscle was built up all over, had been since Varric had known him, and he looked good, like a hero. He _looked_ like a hero.

Hawke hesitated when his fingers got to the waistband of his smalls, still facing away from Varric, and he turned back to look at him. Varric read the hesitation in his face.

“You writing to Bianca?” he asked. Varric was familiar with the look on his face. Guilt, want, uncertainty. The kind of face that was easy to describe, when he was putting it on paper for one of his books, and not so easy when it was right in front of him, looking him in the eye.

“Not tonight,” Varric murmured, and Hawke took his smalls off too. 

Varric took up the clipboard he used sometimes for writing in bed, taking up the pages that needed editing, and he let Hawke climb into bed first, felt Hawke curl up against his side. The first time they’d done this, there’d been a gap between them like a trench, Hawke all but hanging over the edge of the bed, like he was scared of _facing_ Varric when they were in the same bed, let alone touching him.

Now, he laid his head under the crook of Varric’s arm, his cheek pressed against Varric’s chest, his arm loosely curled around Varric’s middle, his fingers splayed on Varric’s thigh. For all Hawke worried about it, Varric didn’t think he and Bianca had ever had a peaceful enough few hours to lie like this - intimately, but without urgency.

The thought made him want to sigh, so he played his fingers loosely through Hawke’s hair.

“They really that pissed off at you?” Varric asked.

“Fenris isn’t. Ironically, I think I actually told him what he wanted me to tell him, he just didn’t want to admit it. Anders... Andraste’s tits, Varric, I don’t know what he wants me to tell him, what he wants to say to me. I just know he’s so angry that sometimes I feel like he’s going to...” He shook his head. “And Mother wasn’t that angry. She just wanted to _discuss _it, and then was upset when I wasn’t in the mood.”

“S’not your fault,” Varric murmured.

“Isn’t it?”

“No. People always see the hero with the world on his shoulders - they never ask who put it there.”

Hawke was quiet, his eyes closing shut. It wasn’t just about Hawke, was the thing. Varric would love to pretend it was, wouldn’t mind pretending it was all about noble Varric, offering a shoulder to cry on to some friends and a chest to sleep on for others, but he found a comfort in it, too, in Hawke’s body warm beside him in the bed, Hawke’s even breathing even though his hair was still wet. 

He looked to the chapter in his lap, and then he dropped it aside, blowing out the candle. With just the fire lighting the room, he looked at Hawke’s face, peaceful, fast asleep. He turned toward the Champion, buried his face in his hair, and let his own eyes shut tight too. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Feel free to hit up [my ask on Tumblr,](http://patricianandclerk.tumblr.com/ask) to talk about DA in general, and definitely to recommend blogs to follow! I am open for requests (for Origins, II, and Inq). I also run a no-drama Dragon Age Discord, which [you can join here.](https://discordapp.com/invite/ttgP5v8) Please comment if you can!


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